


Ordinary Loves

by CypressSunn



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24116557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn
Summary: Gazing out the steel-framed window overlooking the city awash with daylight, Vanya feels no regrets about the timelines reduced to heaps of cinder and bone. She is content to be here, now, with her sister and her niece. Ready to be with her family like she was always meant to be. “The hard part is over. We get to be together now. We get to be happy.”
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39
Collections: 101 Prompts Meme





	Ordinary Loves

**Author's Note:**

> 101 Prompt #44: Together
> 
> Warnings for mentions of mind control and its aftermath. Mentions of child abuse and neglect. Some memory loss in association with troubled childhoods. And powered-up potentially word destroying Vanya is a little... off.

After, before, or somewhere in-between, Vanya meets Claire. 

It wasn’t planned or scheduled. They just happened to fall into the same city Patrick had relocated to post-divorce. Allison only finds out when she is glancing over page six out of habit. The header of _New City Arrivals_ leaves her shaking. Her daughter’s face is smiling bright in the black and white. Sobs wrack her nearly healed vocal chords. Her brothers try to intervene but in the end they understand. She can’t stay, she can’t not see her.

“This way,” Vanya says, trudging north. She leads the pair of them down Eleventh Avenue. Allison isn’t sure how she could know enough of the city to navigate Manhattan to navigate them anywhere, but the highrise she stops in front matches the address Allison scribbled on the back of a torn magazine page. “She’s inside.”

Allison’s feet are made of lead. She shakes her head. “We can’t be sure of that. We didn’t call ahead.” The miserable foolishness of the whole errand sinks in. They may have come all this way and still not be able to see her. Claire.

Vanya tilts her head, a flash of ashen eyes. The world goes impossibly quiet as New York holds its breath. Voices, foot traffic, skidding tires, the wind between the buildings all caught in the power Vanya holds. A plucked violin string held taut, waiting to be released.

Then Vanya smiles. Her eyes are dark again.

“I can hear her.”

Allison smiles through the pain of hoping. She scrawls on her notepad. _You don't know her voice._

Vanya shrugs. She’s wearing one of their brother’s coats. It’s too big for her frame and nearly slips off her shoulders. “Of course I do. She sounds just like you did when we were young.”

***

The door man lets Allison up by name recognition alone.

Patrick, the ex-husband, isn’t pleased. “Absolutely not,” he spits, forcing the door closed between them. It’s hard for him to manage while he has his fingers stuffed in his eyes. The entire clumsy display is because he thinks Allison is going to _rumor_ him.

“Patrick, please!” Allison’s voice drops out. She can only manage so many words a day, so much inflection before the strain turns her throat to gravel. 

Vanya, standing off to the side, pushes forward. “She can barely speak.” Vanya is matter-of-fact. But Allison knows her well enough, that the guilt is beneath the surface. 

Patrick straightens, misgiving but intrigued. “How’d that happen?”

Vanya looks at Allison, ready to follow her lead. But Allison is past blame, past pointing fingers. She withdraws her pen from her trench coat pocket and scribbles one furious word on her sketchpad. 

‘Accident.’

“A real shame,” Patrick says without an ounce of remorse. He goes to slam the door once again.

Vanya could lift him off the ground and toss him from the gleaming highrise windows. She doesn’t. “Allison didn’t come here to hurt anyone. All she wants is to tell her daughter she loves her.”

“But does anyone else get a say in that love?” Patrick heaves the door open so there is nothing left between them. “Do they, Allison?”

“Please,” Allison begs, hand over heart. The sound is awful. Like shattered glass grinding up past her lips. “Please, please.” With her own fingers over her throat, Allison bows her head. Her curls obscure her face and her tears. Words still come out, split open and pained. It sounds like “Claire” over and over again.

In a gust of energy, Vanya amplifies the broken sound. It swirls through the hallway and echoes into the loft. All around them, the windows shake and the doorknobs to other apartments rattle. The mother’s chant reverberates over the minimalist furniture and the chiseled embellishments until—

“Mommy?”

A pair of eager feet storm the staircase behind Patrick. Skinny arms and sticky sweet fingers reach for Allison and Allison reaches back. They collapse together in a heap and little Claire joins her mother in her cries.

***

“One hour,” warns Patrick. “Any longer and I call the police.” Allison clasps her hands together, shivering with thanks. Patrick is unmoved. “I still have full custodial rights, and my lawyer will be hearing about all of this.”

Allison purses her lips tightly. They go white before finally, she nods. Without another word, she retreats to the den where her daughter waits. She checks the antique timepiece on the counter first. The clock is ticking.

Vanya hangs back. She regards Patrick evenly before he heads to his office. He seems equally unimpressed with her in return. 

“You know, you’re lucky I’m here instead of my brothers.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Because unlike my brothers,” Vanya continues, “I can sympathize with how powerless you feel. Or at least, I used to. That’s why I told them not to come. Luther and Diego fought me, but I knew it’s best not to overwhelm you. The full force of the Umbrella Academy is a lot to take in. Especially in a united front.”

Patrick wavers. “You don’t scare me, Vanya. You don’t have any—”

The face of his wristwatch cracks in half. Patrick jumps a foot in the air while Vanya hasn’t moved an inch. She leaves Patrick startled and stumbling as she walks away, ready to meet her niece.

***

Claire is showing off her newest ballet slippers to her enraptured audience. She twirls again and again and Allison claps as fast as she can.

“Brava! I had no idea we had such an _artiste_ in the family,” Vanya laughs as Claire takes her bow. She settles in next to Allison on the couch and whispers, “Sorry for the holdup. I was talking to Patrick.”

 _About what?_ Allison scribbles cautiously. 

“I reminded him of who his in-laws were. Or ex-in-laws.”

A smile warms over Allison’s face despite herself. _No threats. Can’t lose her._ Across the room, Claire is digging through her toy boxes. Tossing and turning dolls and play clothes, showing no signs of stopping. The girl is a whirlwind, every inch an Hargreeves. All that passion and fire reminiscent of her mother’s. The only thing different is her hair. Mom never let Allison’s curls get anywhere near that tangled.

“You’re not going to lose your daughter again,” Vanya promises. “You're not… because we’ve blown up the moon and skipped over an apocalyptic timeline. We got Five back and we have séances with Ben, and we even deprogrammed Luther.”

Gazing out the steel-framed window overlooking the city awash with daylight, Vanya feels no regrets about the timelines reduced to heaps of cinder and bone. She is content to be here, now, with her sister and her niece. Ready to be with her family like she was always meant to be. “The hard part is over. We get to be together now. We get to be happy.”

Allison looks unsure still.

“And Patrick is going to have to learn to live with it. Even if it takes the whole Umbrella Academy to convince him.”

Allison’s face drops but before she can say anything, her daughter shouts, “Mommy, look! My crown!” Claire prances over to the couch wearing a cape and tiara. Allison plants kisses all over her face before Claire gets squirmy and embarrassed and trots off to gather more toys. Not taking her eyes off of her daughter, Allison passes the notepad to Vanya. The words _not a bad person_ are etched in ink. 

Vanya nods. “Of course you’re not.”

Allison blinks, as if misunderstood. She sighs and rubs at her eyes. She takes the notepad back. _Not me. Patrick. He is a good dad._

“Fine. Maybe,” Vanya concedes. “But you’re a good mom. Don’t argue. You are. You had to try ten times harder than Patrick to figure out how to be a parent.” Vanya doesn’t know much about Patrick, but he was born into money and comfort and never once made into a child soldier. “All any of us knew about motherhood is a bunch of nuts and bolts and wires.” Vanya sops when Allison gives Vanya a look that almost seems cross. “It’s not an insult to Grace, it’s the truth.”

_Tell that to Diego._

“Maybe I will,” Vanya dares and Claire drops a least a dozen storybooks in her lap. Allison of course can’t read much for long so Vanya takes over narration duties. Allison bundles Claire close so she can see the picture book in Vanya’s lap. _A Tale of Two Princes_. They stay like that for the longest, Vanya turning the pages and Allison working her fingers through the mess of Claire’s hair. The bun in her hair had been there too long; for days perhaps. It was all knotted and twisted at the top of her little head.

“Mommy, stop pulling!”

Vanya sets the stack of books down. “Claire, could you bring us your hairbrushes and a comb?”

“Do we have to?”

“We’ll be quick. Your mommy and I will make sure you have hair fit for a princess.”

“No! A superhero!” and with her cape around her neck, Claire disappears down the hall to her bedroom. Tearing her eyes away, Allison holds up the pad. _He was right to take her._

“Allison—”

“I don’t deserve her.” Her words sound dreadful, low and worn out. She speaks quieter, deeper so Claire can’t hear what’s left of her mother’s voice. 

“You made one mistake.”

“I did it all the time.” Allison’s face curled in pain. “When I was tired… or mad… or didn’t care. And I did it to him, too. I made him— I took away his choice. Like I did to you.”

The stern, ungiving face of their father flashes through her mind. His cold stare behind that monocle, the empty metal cell he lured her into not knowing what would be taken from her. Vanya walked out as someone else, a child cleaved in half, made smaller, dulled out until she forgot how bright her colors once were. Left to carry her sister’s echo, _‘I heard a rumor you think you’re just ordinary.’_

Some days Vanya still believes it. But not today.

“You wanted someone to love you.” Vanya takes Allison’s hands. She takes her pen, too. “You wanted to be special to someone. And no one ever taught us how to ask for it. At least, not the right way.” Allison squeezes her eyes shut and turns away, tears in free fall. She doesn’t let go of her sister’s hand. “Dad could never be bothered with anything as ordinary as loving someone back.”

A moment later, Claire rushes back in brandishing a paddle brush and a wide-tooth comb. Allison wipes at her face; her grief and shame still obvious. Claire will notice if she looks too close.

“Come here,” Vanya urges, gentle. “Let me fix your hair, instead.”

“Do you know how?” her niece asks, unconvinced. Hair time with her father must be a hassle.

“Of course,” Vanya declares. “I used to braid your mommy’s hair all the time.”

Allison makes a noise that sounds like a sniffle caught in a laugh, something akin to disbelief. But then Vanya nestles Claire at the foot of the couch, between her knees. With a delicacy she learned young, she sections the hair with the comb. Her coiled hair springs to life, uncaged from the too-tight rubber band. In four even quarters with soft finger detangling, Vanya brushes at the ends of her hair before working into longer strokes.

“You just need a little spritz of water and some lotion—” Vanya looks up from Claire’s curls. Allison’s red-rimmed eyes are wide as she watching Vanya at work. “You know, Claire,” Vanya leans down closer, “I don’t think your mommy remembers, but I used to french braid her hair after her missions with the Umbrella Academy. She always wiggled around too much and the braids would get crooked.”

“I don’t wiggle,” Claire promises. Allison sits closer, skims her fingers through her hair, as if trying to feel for the memory. Reaching for an answer to the question of how much they had lost, how much was taken. All of the ordinary moments still missing where they had simply been two girls, two sisters. Part of a family.

Resolution never comes that easy, but Vanya can hear the sound of Allison’s heartbeat, steady and strong. The soft, relaxed hum she breathes out when Claire asks for french braids just like The Rumor used to wear. Vanya knows she can make peace with this. There’s still time enough.

“Alright then, Claire, you sit still and hold you mommy’s hand, okay? And don’t let go.”

“Yes, Auntie Vanya.”

_**fin.** _


End file.
